In 2008, Marvel Entertainment released a movie called Iron Man. At the time, it seemed like a bit of a long shot: a big budget movie about a character that wasn’t very popular, made by the very company that owned the character. It’s hard to look back and understand how much of a risk that film was, but those risks paid off and launched the Marvel film franchise. And as those films expanded and grew, Marvel’s approach began to provide an interesting look at market segmentation.

Market segmentation is a key aspect of the modern business, one that allows companies to divide and conquer high yield segments. As opposed to usual demographics, which divide people according to age, gender, race, religion, family size, and other aspects of a person’s life, market segmentation ( www.Keltonglobal.com/Market-segmentation ) goes one step further. This can include segmentation according to things like geography, psychological profiles, spending habits, and other behaviors (like product usage and perceived benefits from purchases).

Market segmentation and the movies

When you look at a major movie franchise like Marvel, the way it has expanded is an excellent look into powerful market segmentation. Unlike traditional movie franchises, which release a series of sequels until the story is finished, like the Transformers films, the Marvel films expanded quickly into other media, telling different stories that appealed to different segments of the population. So instead of having a few movies, Marvel’s film franchise now consists of movies, television programs across multiple networks, web series, and even an incorporation of characters from the movies into the comic books on which the films are based.

Take, as an example of market segmentation, how Marvel expanded into television. They first used a character, Phil Coulson, to spin off a series for ABC called Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The series follows serialized adventures of a spy organization that played a major role in the first few Marvel films, and the TV series allowed for regular adventures with small-time characters from the films, up to and including Samuel L. Jackson’s character, Nick Fury. From there, another spin-off was created for a character from the Captain America movies, but this time it was a historical spy drama set after the second world war instead of today. From there, Marvel expanded into Netflix, with four series that told longer stories, “binge-worthy” dramas that told one long story over a season instead of multiple smaller stories, like Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

These expansions use market segmentation to tell different stories that reach different people, and all of the projects stand alone, but reward viewers who engage with all of them. For the movie buffs, there are the blockbuster films, but for traditional TV watchers, there are a couple of serialized spy dramas. For the fans of cable dramas, there are shows on demand. Finally, Marvel is now expanding into teen drama through a new series on Hulu, and knowing that teens watch TV differently, they are using market segmentation to ensure the new enterprise reaches as many viewers as possible through a new dedicated teen streaming service called Freeform.

It’s showtime—for Businesses, too.

The Marvel film franchise is one of the most successful and highest-grossing franchises of all time, and their expansion is a lesson on the effective use of market segmentation. But market segmentation isn’t just for big movies, it can also help small businesses ( www.Keltonglobal.com ) get their products into the right hands.